Hi

I will tell you a few things about myself. I will also give you some of my perspectives as the course co-ordinator (and ‘tour guide’) for Using Accounting for Decision Making.

One of the initial challenges for us in our subject will probably be to adjust how we learn. You will not be able to simply rote-learn ‘clear-cut facts’ about accounting and reproduce them in our assessments. What you will also need to do is to take the time and effort to understand for yourself what some of the key concepts we are studying about accounting mean to you. The assessed learning tasks in our course are designed to help you experience this change in how you learn.

You may find this a little frustrating at first … you may find yourself asking ‘just give me the answers’ … do not worry, once you get used to it, learning for understanding and developing personal meaning is so much more fun than just rote-learning … and in years to come you will find you actually will have learnt something about accounting and will still remember and understand some of the key concepts about accounting we will be looking at.

There are also pages on our assessed learning tasks: PeerWise, Assignments and SPAs. I will give you my tips and thoughts as we go along through the term.

And there are pages setting out the emails I will send everyone in our course during the term and also my tweets (@MartinTurner12).

Should be a fun journey!

I hope you come ‘on-board’ as we explore the (possibly) exciting world of accounting.

Hi Travis – thanks for your comment, and also for your tweet. And great to have you in our subject. I look forward to us exploring the world of accounting, and aspects of business accounting may be able to open up for us.
And don’t forget to get started on PeerWise … it is open now, and it is a great advantage to get started on PeerWise early. 🙂

Hi Simona – thanks for your comment.
Best thing to get started with is PeerWise and to start reading Chapter 1 of the Study Guide. Try answering a few questions on PeerWise first and then write one or two questions based on your reading of Chapter 1 of the Study Guide. After a while, you will get the hang of writing really good quality multiple choice questions with solutions. And do not forget to rate and comment on other’s questions.
And it will be great to see what insights you gain about accounting (and business) in our subject.

Thanks for all the information you have provided so far not just on this blog but your email. It has really helped me acquire a better understanding of what is required and what we will be delving into this term.

So much happening on PeerWise already. That is the best thing to get started on first, including getting started on the reading for Week 1: Chapter 1 of the Study Guide. Take your time to reflect on what you think about the material, and why. As we explore what the world of accounting is, and what it can tell us (or not tell us) about the world of business. And while reading Chapter 1 of the Study Guide note down your KCQs (that is, key concepts and questions). You can use these in your Step 4 of ASS#1.

I will be sending out lots more emails during the course – and I will tweet regularly: MartinTurner12 #ACCT11059Tips.

Hello, I am excited to join and learn so much of the business world, accounting being one component. Thanks for the information provided, it is useful for me as a new undergraduate business & law student.

Thanks for your comment. A tip on how to do well in our course: start early.

Get going on PeerWise now – people have already written 70 questions and given 430 answers to these questions and given over 200 comments. And it is still more than a week Week 1 of our course. before There is some great stuff and people to engage with there already.

One of the questions on PeerWise is “Business is …”

So what do we think business is? This is an interesting video on one business person’s (Lillian Grace)take on this for their own business, Wiki NZ: https://vimeo.com/126543046.

Great to have you on board. You can also follow me on twitter: MartinTurner12 / #ACCT11059Tips. If you are not already on twitter you can set up an account at https://twitter.com/. You can also see the tweets I have sent already on my blog at the page: Tweets #ACCT11059Tips.

A lot happening on PeerWise already. So if you haven’t already done so, you should get going. Read Chap 1 of the Study Guide and answer a few questions. After you have answered a few questions, you can then start writing your own. Here are a few tips on how to write questions on PeerWise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb7PUYV-Jow.

Hi Martin,
Thanks for mail and all the information provided. As a IT student, I am really excited to learn about accounting and it is a new for me. I hope it will help me to understand the basic concept of business. Later, it will give me a basic business skills for the future.
Regards,
Sneha

Hi Martin, thanks for all the info you’ve provided so far, it’s really been helpful in getting myself sorted and ready for the term. Excited for the term to start… On that note, I better get started on Peerwise.
Cheers,
Aliza

Hi Aliza,
Thanks for your comment … and I can see you have got started on PeerWise … haha. Lots of great questions and explanations on PeerWise already.
PeerWise tip: when you come across a great question, follow the author. People who write one great question usually write lots of other great questions.
Regards, Martin

Hi Mikiellie,
Thanks – and there is quite a bit to get your head around in our course … haha.
And most people find they get used to the style of our course quite quickly, although it can be a bit of an adjustment at first. 🙂
Regards, Martin

I am afraid I am not one of the people afraid of accounting, but I am afraid of the dark powers of social media….surely I am not the only one!! Having said that, I have high hopes that this subject will help cure my fears and a great experience will be had by all.

Thanks for your comment. It is great you are not afraid of accounting – neither am I 🙂 – about half of the people in our course will be and about half will not, most likely.

And some people will have some concerns with social media. That is fine. Nothing is compulsory in the course, except for the blogs. And great you are loving PeerWise – I really enjoy it too.

So no need to sign up for a twitter account, if you do not wish to. You can catch up with all my tweets on my blog: https://martinturneraccounting.wordpress.com/tweets-acct11059tips/. However, for those without concerns, I would encourage you to set up a twitter account and join me on twitter. It is all part of learning about social media. You can always close down your twitter account after our course, if you wish to.

And no need to join our Facebook page if you have concerns with Facebook. That is also fine. I do understand these concerns.

Our course is about accounting, and also about learning, and about online communication. How do we collaborate well with others online, as well as face to face? For example, PeerWise is a tool to help you do this, with others in our course, wherever they are in Australia.

Thanks for your comment. And great you are focusing on building greater understanding about accounting in our course … you will find our course is all about developing our own understanding and personal meaning, rather than simply ‘rote-learning’ clear cut facts.

Hello Martin
Thank you for the mention in your march the 14th blog, I appreciate the compliment and will continue to work hard to pass this course
Great blog by the way
Thank you for supporting myself and other students in our journey of discovering accounting
looks like it isn’t “just numbers” after all
Have a great day, and I look forward to further communication
Vu

Hi Martin,
I finally got ‘on board’ over the weekend. Lots of work still to do but am finally starting to tick off my to do list.
Your blog looks great and while I only started blogging this year and am still new to it, I think it is a great way to communicate and much better than the forums!

Hi Martin,
It is such a wonderful start of term 1 to be in your course. I know I will learn a lot. At first I found myself making trial and error with my blogging. The last time I opened my word press was three years ago so it took time for me to be familiarised again with it . I was only blogging poems before but now surprisingly I am doing research and blog about a global company! Your blog also looks great!
Thanks and more power.
maria

Hi Maria
Thanks for your great post. Your blog looks pretty cool too!:)
I look forward to seeing what insights you develop about your firm, and in particular whether you feel accounting can help, or perhaps hinder, us to better understand what is really going on in our firm.
Should be a fun journey – and it is only just starting. 🙂
Regards, Martin

My name is Kelly and I am enrolled in ACT11059 in Mackay. I am really excited to study accounting as I have not previously had much experience with accounting in the past and would like to learn more about this practice. I am also very happy to be looking at Michael Hill International Limited as my company and it will be interesting to see how my first blog comes along.

I have had a look at the videos you have posted on Moodle from the residents of the retirement village of Ryman Healthcare and I absolutely love them! It is great to see they have so much energy and creativity.

Your very lucky to be living in Yeppoon as I think its a beautiful town with lots of potential. I would live there if I was given the opportunity 🙂 It is really good to see you have put so much about yourself on your blog as I feel it makes it more personal.